Broadband Money Flows to Connect Rural Schools

Education Week

Billions of dollars in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act broadband grants have begun to flow toward the nation's rural communities, aimed at erasing critical gaps in service and speed that hamper many rural schools or simply shut them out.

The grants and projects vary widely, from funding fixed wireless broadband in Michigan to providing mobile broadband access to rural Alabama. Yet all the projects focus primarily on unserved or underserved communities and in many instances will provide discounted service to anchor institutions in communities such as schools and libraries.

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Blog: Why bandwidth matters

www.speedmatters.com

The United States' position in the global economy is dependent on our commitment to improving our broadband infrastructure and increasing bandwidth.

Bandwidth matters because the speed of our Internet connection affects how well we compete in today's digitally-enabled and interconnected global economy.

Over the past decade, America has steadily fallen behind its developed peers in the speed and reach of its broadband Internet network. A recent global study ranked the United States twenty-third in broadband development, far behind leaders South Korea, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. Twenty-third may even be too rosy a projection — According to Speed Matters' numbers, the United States is twenty-eighth internationally.

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COLUMN: Broadband access helps economy

People's Defender

It goes without saying that broadband-high speed Internet is changing the way Americans live their lives. It's almost hard to remember how many of us got by without it. With access to broadband, we can easily sell a car, rent an apartment, look for a job, read the news, or manage a business. Broadband can connect you to the rest of the world on your schedule, at your convenience and almost anywhere - that is unless you live in rural America.

Today too few rural Americans can take advantage of the opportunities broadband provides. Only half of rural residents can access broadband - compared to 65 percent nationwide - because too many communities in rural America don't have adequate broadband infrastructure.

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Gaining broadband access

WHIZ

Nearly 1,400 homes in Appalachia Ohio will soon trade in their dial-up service for broadband access.

18th District US Congressman Zack Space says a USDA grant of more than $4 million has been awarded for that project.

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Lobbyists converge on broadband Web battle

The Hill

The FCC proposal to bring broadband under tighter regulatory control has triggered a fierce lobbying battle in Washington.

Tech companies, cable firms and phone service providers have upped their lobbying spending. Top technology CEOs have stopped by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s office to express their point of view. And companies that have never hired lobbyists in the past have set up K Street accounts for the first time.

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Lobbyists converge on broadband Web battle

The Hill

The FCC proposal to bring broadband under tighter regulatory control has triggered a fierce lobbying battle in Washington.

Tech companies, cable firms and phone service providers have upped their lobbying spending. Top technology CEOs have stopped by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s office to express their point of view. And companies that have never hired lobbyists in the past have set up K Street accounts for the first time.

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Bahrain (and 8 other countries) have more connected homes than U.S., study says

Los Angeles Times

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Canada is better than us at something.

Our neighbor to the north is tied for third among countries with the top home Internet penetration rates, with 86% of adults reporting Web access in their homes, according to a Gallup poll published Wednesday. The United States is in 10th place with 81%.

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Pelosi links broadband policies to Democrats' manufacturing efforts

TheHill.com

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday that federal efforts to expand broadband access to all Americans play an "essential" role in breathing life into the nation's manufacturing sector, which she described as a key Democratic goal.

She told the Communications Workers of America that that expanding broadband access to all Americans is a priority akin to healthcare reform.

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Peggy Timmerman: Rural business owners need high-speed Internet

Wisconsin State Journal

A recent letter bemoaning the use of tax dollars as stimulus funds to provide high-speed Internet in rural Marquette and Adams counties is a perfect example of the rural-urban divide in this country.

Unfortunately, our government was slow to realize that Internet access should have been regulated and treated as a utility from the outset. (Remember the Rural Electrification Program?)

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Speed limits changing on information superhighways

Creston News

PRINCETON, Mo. — The communities of Lorimor, Murray and Thayer, along with surrounding rural areas, are part of an extensive plan to expand broadband Internet service in Iowa and Missouri.

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development awarded Grand River Mutual Telephone Company $40.9 million in loans and grants stemming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act federal stimulus package to upgrade Internet capabilities in three service areas encompassing more than 4,000 homes.

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Good news all around for telehealth projects

IT Business Edge

The Federal Communication Commission’s plan to bring broadband to rural health care facilities is good news for people who live in remote areas. But it also could be a sign of changes to the Universal Services Fund (USF), a longstanding system aimed at subsidizing phone services in remote locales.

Computerworld does a good job of explaining what’s going on. The basic idea, which virtually anyone would find laudable, is to provide broadband, and with it advanced diagnostic, telehealth and other services, to more than 2,000 facilities that are far from cities or suburbs.

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Rural broadband: Miles to go before we sleep

GoingWiMax.com

As the United States recovers from the great recession, it is even more critical to focus on broadband deployment to ensure that Americans have the necessary tools to compete worldwide. This is the first of a series of articles that addresses broadband deployment, with recommendations for its improvement. This article focuses on rural broadband deployment.

Broadband allows users to reach the Internet at higher speeds than they could with traditional modems.

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NTIA gives broadband grant to group for deaf

PC World

The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded a $15 million broadband grant to Communication Service for the Deaf, a nonprofit focused on providing deaf and hard-of-hearing U.S. residents with communications services.

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Expanding Broadband initiatives

By Gary Audin
Delphi, Inc.

The cause of expanding broadband/Internet wired and wireless services has received new emphasis by the federal government. The more there is available broadband access at affordable rates, the better for the economy, affecting consumers, businesses, governments and educational institutions.

A recent article in the New York Times, "High Speed for the Sparsely Wired", July 9, 2010, focused on the expansion of broadband/Internet services to the those living with slow dial up access or none at all.

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Unraveling Ohio's new phone rules

Columbus Dispatch

Back in 1989, if you made a phone call, Ma Bell probably put it through.

Things have changed since then, and last month, the state law that governs telecommunications in Ohio changed, too.

The Ohio Telecommunications Modernization Act - "common-sense regulatory reform," in the view of Gov. Ted Strickland - takes effect Sept. 12. It replaces legislation that's been on the books since 1989, the last time telecom regulation was comprehensively considered. That's light-years ago in terms of changes in the industry, with more people migrating from landlines to cell phones, and more companies bundling phone service with cable TV and the like.

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Rural K-12 schools, colleges to get broadband

Columbus Dispatch

A state public-private partnership has been awarded $30 million in federal stimulus money to extend broadband service to 28 western Ohio counties that have been underserved.

"A strong technology backbone is essential for our rural communities to be competitive in business and for our students to take advantage of digital learning," Gov. Ted Strickland said in a written statement.

The money will be used to build more than 700 miles of high-capacity fiber that will directly link rural and underserved communities, including K-12 schools, state and local government offices, health-care facilities, community colleges and universities.

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White House pledges another $800 million for broadband stimulus

engadget.com

Usually, when we see "stimulus" and "broadband" in the same sentence it's because someone turned off our Google SafeSearch filter, but today we have one such item that is totally safe for work.

According to Information Week, the $7.2 billion in broadband grants and loans that we've already seen will be buttressed by an additional $800 million.

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State gets $30M broadband stimulus grant

Business First of Columbus

A public-private state partnership has been awarded $30 million in federal stimulus funding for a project to extend broadband access in Ohio.

The Ohio Middle Mile Consortium, a group of broadband providers around the state, sought the grant on behalf of the state.

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States ride broadband wave

Stateline.org

Colorado is one of a number of states where state and local governments are prohibited by law to directly provide broadband service, for example, free municipal wireless connections.

So a recommendation in the Federal Communication Commission’s National Broadband Plan has state officials scrambling. Released in March, the plan calls for Congress to ensure that state and local governments don’t pose any barriers to making broadband available. If approved, the action could override the state laws.

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Governor: Stimulus funds to deliver broadband across Wisconsin

Associated Press

Wisc. Gov. Jim Doyle says federal stimulus money will help Wisconsin expand broadband telecommunications services to hundreds of schools and libraries.

Doyle on Monday asked the Legislature's budget committee to approve plans for adding fiber optic connections at schools in 70 districts by the end of 2010 and at libraries in 380 communities by the end of 2011.

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